10 Corporation Dilemma 5

You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't mean anything by purging the half of the ship. You didn't get a choice to do so...I keep telling myself that as I push the buttons of the firing controls. The Gatling Laser tore the hull of the ship. I could see men and women and even children alike dying by my hands. I'm not a killer you know? I may be steel-hearted, cold-hearted, and iron-blooded but I have my own red thin line.

I broke that thin line because I know that dealing with the corporation would prove dangerous. I and the Captain were just rookies in the Freelancer profession. Offending a corporation that spans over sectors wasn't the right thing to do at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if the choice that we did during that moment was right. Captain didn't say anything and just fired. I thought of the Captain as a stoic woman. I thought she would at least react to the sufferings of the innocent but in reality, she looked like she didn't care. The fact that she was making an aloof and steeled expression. Such stern expression cemented the idea that the Captain was a stoic and apathetic woman.

I would follow the Captain even in the depths of hell. I owe her my life and she saved me from that hell in Begin-01. I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for the Captain. But even so, that doesn't mean I like her as a person. Respect and trust are hard to earn while easy to lose. She got my respect for saving me. She got my trust after spending a few weeks with her but seeing her apathetic gaze made me lose all of that. I didn't show it to my face. Maybe I interpreted wrong but that was my conclusion of the Captain.

Can you blame me? Even Henry Jims and Twins showed reaction despite their stoic façade. The horror they showed made me realize that even Charlotte of the Corporation feels sickened of her duties. This was her living and the corporation was her profession. I could tell that she was a realist and a pragmatist and I know that this event hurt her.

There are many factors why they had to destroy the ship. The biomass around the ship was infected with an unknown genome that could possibly infect a whole population. The ship was light years away from any sector of a colonized planet but it didn't mean that the survivors wouldn't be able to carry the virus with them. We didn't get the virus because of our physique as soldiers and we wore our equipment along the way, filtering all sorts of nasty things.

Saving lives cost more than missiles. The Corporation could slave away the people and make them manual labor but bringing in a new genome virus would cost them a massive amount credits. The Corporation couldn't stand losing the titan ship but they had no choice in the matter.

So they purged the stadium-size ship and gave hellfire to those who survived. The cost of those lives would mean that millions wouldn't be infected. They would be no new plague and the Corporation wouldn't suffer loss. Are we evil for doing that? I don't think so. We just chose the lesser evil of not letting it spread. Not to mention that the aliens were going to use it as bio-ship to attack a planet.

The war around many sectors was finally over but that didn't mean that the surviving strays would stop attacking humanity. The stray aliens would root themselves and no matter how we cut them down they would grow and grow again. It was better to dig them out before they can spread their roots. It was the only way to keep whatever universe we were trying to save.

I am no fool. I know what I did and it haunts me. The guilt claws my heart as I sleep. The purging of that ship would haunt. The innocent that I helped kill with the Corporation would remain in my nightmares. I've killed many things in my life. But killing your own people was something that I couldn't do easily.

The thought of killing a child never crossed my mind until I joined in the massacre of thousands of people. I don't even remember nor did I even know the name of the ship? I couldn't bother simply because I was worried about my own hide. I was working because there was money on it, the money that I would spend on something that would please me.

My choice at that moment was to destroy that titan ship along with the Corporation fleet. I know that they threatened me. I know that they would think of nothing but kill us on the spot if we resist. I didn't have the conviction to say no. I didn't have the power to refuse and having no prestige made me realize how useless my opinions are in the purge.

You didn't have a choice. If you have power then surely you would have stopped them from doing that and attempt to reach out for any hope. I keep telling myself that despite knowing how futile it was. Even if I resisted the hundreds of fleet from the Corporation would drop a hellfire on the people and finish them off

It was pointless. It was a pipe dream to stop it from happening. The choices that were given to were spoken by those who have power. That's why I could only open fire upon the people while trying to make a stoic façade. I don't know who tried to communicate us but we turned a blind eye on it. "Fire and let none live," was the order of Charlotte's fleet.

We didn't hesitate and we did what the Commander of the fleet does. I don't know why but when the laser beams from the fleet stopped and when the bodies of the dead floated upon space. I know that I had to stop myself from what I was doing to offer them a prayer. To, however, God may hear me.

...

The stars were riddled with corpses and debris. Cauterized limbs and leftover organs flew like piñata that was broken by a baseball. Hundreds of fleet from the Corporation started to glide to the wreckage of the Titan ship. They were making sure that the ship was fully purged.

Even the escape pods that tried to move away from the area were shot down by corroding missiles. Some of them tried to seek shelter from us and offered us thousands of credits. But the Corporation outbid them and shortly we shot them dead. "Why?" said someone whose face and voice I didn't dare to see or hear.

The controls started to stabilize. I was able to easily learn the flight controls but I was going to need more practice. The event made me rather cynical and depressed over the futility of everything. Do you have that feeling too? How everything just feels like a cosmic jest of some greater entity.

The purge was over. Charlotte of the Corporation streamed herself on the screen. She has a rather plain expression that matches Captain's stoic façade. She wasn't speaking for a good while. She was just staring at the screen before saying, "I thank you, Freelancers, for keeping us company. Your work is noted and you will be given extra credits for this purge. You may keep the gunships and interceptors you've looted as a sign of goodwill. May we hear from you five, I am looking forward to more jobs for all of you, Charlotte out."

Before long the whole Charlotte fleet started to tear through space. They all simultaneously warped out of the sector, leaving us behind the scene of the crime. I gazed at the residue left behind by the fleet. There was a temporal distortion left by the warp travel. Like a tripwire that would certainly trip the ships that would pass by.

"Henry Jims here," a video stream appeared. "Well, that was a mess. Don't think about it too much. We weren't given a chance to refuse. It was either them or us. We didn't survive the battlefields just to get killed by the Corporation."

Another vide stream linked, "That's right. We simply didn't have a choice." It was Katia and Olga talking. "If the Corporation didn't threaten us we wouldn't even stoop this low. The blame goes to the Corporation despite us pulling the trigger."

"Is that so?" I commented. "So what happens now?"

"We'll leave and forget what happened here. It was nice working with you folks, that's it for me."

Henry Jim's video linked got cut off. Katia and Olga enlarged their screen and said, "We thank you two for assisting us. Although it ended this way we are still grateful for what you two did for us. We wouldn't have survived that horde for you two. If you like you can visit us in our brothel in Mars. We are the dominatrix of the Dalia Charade, Katia and Olga Charade, out."

...

We hyper traveled back to Ganymede as fast as possible. While we were going there I took time to learn the controls of the interceptor ship. Captain wasn't interested in taking the ship. She was already set on taking the gunship as her own. I named the interceptor ship as Carnifex while the Captain named the gunship as Fortuna.

I was still sulking for Captain's stoic façade. I sat on the small hangar that kept the interceptor ship. The ship was folded and the wings were wrapped around so it can fit the small hanger. The interceptor ship's interior was quite small but there was a small space that allows me to rest. There was also a small compartment near the back of the ship that can hold luggage.

The interceptor ship was finely made. It was a surprise to see how they could build something like this. It was FTL capable and could travel faster than the gunship. The ship was more focus on speed. The weaponry was fine too. I ended up inside the ship and activated the VR simulator training. I practiced till I heard a knock on the window of the cockpit. Captain carried two mugs of coffee. I didn't show expression as I took the mug.

"I am sorry," said Captain.

"What for Captain?" I asked.

"You must be disappointed to find me not making any face during that slaughter. Just you know I hated it. I saved people before. I saved a lot and I was born with a stiff upper lip. I may not look like it but I was distraught. I understand that you'd make a face like that."

"You sure are good at reading someone," I sighed. She saw through me.

Captain shook her head, "No, I am not that good at making emotions. I was bred to keep a poker face since young. It is not like I am good at reading people. But I've seen that expression so many times that even I would recognize it. I am sorry if I am emotionally stunted."

How could I react to that? She was saying all of this while I was keeping a petty grudge on my heart. No, it was partly my fault that Captain had to say all of this. "I am sorry," I said.

"No, it was my fault, not yours. Although we still don't understand each other. I hope that you don't leave me behind."

She left after saying that. Her lone figure seems heavy that I wondered what the Captain experience before I met her. Still, I cursed myself because I wasn't moved by her words that much. I feel troubled that I start to hate the Captain for making a reasonable choice. I get it. I know that we benefitted from this but at the cost of innocent lives. How could I live knowing that the price to have this ship was at the cost of hundreds or even thousands of lives?

What can I do? How can I repay this blood-debt?